


Hell is Cold

by xtricks



Series: Hell is Cold [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aliens, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hell, Original Character(s), s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:12:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xtricks/pseuds/xtricks
Summary: The Rider wasn’t a person, it was more like ... the fire it was made of; hungry, driven, relentless.  It wanted.  And, right now, it wanted Robbie to be here.





	Hell is Cold

**Author's Note:**

> I’m thinking that something like Eli wouldn’t die as easily as it seemed in the show. This is what happened when Robbie left the world behind.
> 
> Part 2, and final part

A wrench was a wrench - no matter how many hands were meant to use it.  “Done,” Robbie grunted breathlessly, giving a last heave on it to tighten the joint.  Wrapping a rag over the makeshift pipe to add stability, he stepped back as water began to dribble out of the end and into the ramshackle tub set to catch it.

When he straightened up, everyone around him skittered back.  “Yeah, okay, okay ....” They’d let him in (because of the kid, he suspected) but clearly found him creepy as fuck.  Robbie could say the same, but he was the odd one out here.

“Wherever here was,” Robbie looked up at the sky, grey and featureless.  “And _why_.”

The end of the road was a refugee camp and a last stand, Robbie suspected, for these four armed creatures.  It was horrible; rank, crowded, full of ragged tents, and desperate people. This place was dying, the starless nights got longer each time, the air colder, the wind harsher.  Sometimes the ground would shake and remind him of LA, and home.

He worried about Gabe, obsessively.  That last look on Gabe’s face; fear and anger, then he’d turned away from the _thing_ Robbie had become and who could blame him?  Robbie didn’t. He tried to think of other times, better times, but it was hard in a place like this.  His stomach would twist because, god help him, he didn’t want his last memory of his brother to be that.  Worse, he didn’t want his last memory his brother had of _him_ to be the Ghost Rider.  But, there it was.

What would happen to Gabe now?  Dead parents, a big brother who’d promised he’d take care of him, always be there, that no one would ever hurt him (again) - gone without a word.  Robbie’s guilt made even the Rider restless.

He’d left Gabe with SHIELD, would they keep his little brother safe now that Robbie was gone?  Coulson had tried to save him, at the end. Daisy had tried to help him, and not just with the job - the ghosts both of them had been chasing - but with Gabe.  She’d lied for him, tried to keep his secret. Would they care about his little brother? He was pinning his hopes on a girl he’d tried to kill.

Robbie wanted to go _home_ with the homesick desperation of a child _._  He was as lost as a kid too, he had no idea where to go from here, how to get home, or why he was here in the first place.  Had the Rider even _meant_ for them to be here, or were they stranded?  It was usually impatient, driving Robbie to find the guilty and punish them, to move on to the next and the next and the next.  But here, the Rider ... waited?

“For what, _jefe?_ ”  Robbie trudged to the scrap of tarp that he called home.  It gave him a good view of the thing in the center of the camp the creatures were working on so desperately.  He recognized it, sort of. It looked a lot like the mad science gate SHIELD had made except bigger - like two stories bigger.  Pylons surrounded it, humming with pent up energy. Day and night, the creatures did their work, drawing invisible lines in the air, sometimes hoisted on mechanical stilts to reach the high points.  Robbie squinted, letting some of the Rider’s heat well up - there, he could see it now, the webwork of vivid lines, infinitely complex. They were the same burning, incandescent orange as the Rider’s hellfire.  The sight sent something like excitement through the Rider, something like _anticipation_.  Shutting his eyes, shutting out distractions, Robbie tried to understand.

 _A voice in the back of his head_ ... it wasn’t really like that, and listening to the Rider speak through Mack had made Robbie’s skin crawl.  The Rider wasn’t a person, it was more like ... the fire it was made of; hungry, driven, relentless. It _wanted_ .  And, right now, it wanted Robbie to be _here_.  

 

_Something was coming.  The guilty would be punished.  They would suffer. Then, they would die._

Its voice was a dark echo of his own.

Scampering footsteps made Robbie open his eyes to see the kid he’d rescued.  It chirped like a canary and shook a little bag with something that could be enthusiasm.  He’d been keeping an eye on the kid since no one else seemed to.

“Sure.”  Robbie waved it closer and helped it scrape a circle on the ground.  Marbles was a universal game, evidently, and it wasn’t like he had anything else to do.

They couldn’t talk to each other.  Robbie could whistle just fine, but not like an opera, and he wasn’t sure these creatures could really even _hear_ his voice.  Not that he had much chance, except for the kid, most of the creatures here cringed away when he walked by.  It wasn’t his two arms, or the weird hair on his head, or freakish eyes - it was what he became in the dark, when all that burned away to reveal the true monster.  It scared Robbie too, the Rider was getting stronger every day and he was afraid that someday, the Rider wouldn’t pull back and Robbie would be stuck as a passenger in a body that wasn’t his anymore.  Forever. If it happened ... it wasn’t something he could stop. He’d made his deal and he’d have to keep it.

“C’mon, you first, kid,” Robbie picked out the blue and green swirled shooter marble he used when they played.  It reminded him of home ... well, of Earth from the NASA pictures anyway. The kid chose the red and yellow one and Robbie wondered if it was thinking about the Rider.  He hoped the kid didn’t think it was some kind of savior, or that he was. The Rider wasn’t here because of the starving aliens, or the kid that slept under the tarp with Robbie, or because everyone here was a breath away from extinction.  It was here for vengeance.

Robbie wasn’t paying much attention and he lost the game, making the kid whistle with pleasure (maybe).  Instead of trying to get Robbie to play another, the kid pressed a pair of hands together, then tilted them from left to right.  It was one of the few things they ‘communicated’.

“Darkfall, huh?  Already?” Robbie got to his feet and brushed his ass off.  He’d learned it meant the light was ending. The days were getting shorter, the darkness longer and there _was_ something the monster was good for.  

“You stay _here_.”  He pointed sternly at their shitty shelter.  A couple of times, the kid had tried to follow him and join the fight but Robbie wasn’t having any of that.  Alien or not, it was a just a kid - a kid with no family and no one to look after it but some freak. It gave him some whistling backtalk which Robbie ignored.  He’d put the brakes on Gabe plenty of times, this wasn’t too different. The thought stopped him cold and Robbie turned sharply away, hunching his shoulders against another pang of lonely homesickness.  The alien wasn’t Gabe, he wasn’t here to take care of anyone, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get attached to anything in this fucked up place.

“C’mon, man, why the hell are we here?” Robbie muttered trying to get some reaction out of the Rider but it didn’t respond.   _“Bastardo.”_

Robbie joined an eddy of armed aliens and took his place on the wall, zipping his jacket and pulling on his gloves.  Darkness fell and Robbie swept his chain off his shoulder, mouth dry, as the scraping, screeching noises below rose to a crescendo.  He knew how to fight the bug monsters, he knew he wouldn’t die but still, the sounds they made scared him every time - they were like every boogeyman story he’d ever heard.  The first awful face crested the wall and the Rider surged free with a fiery howl. Robbie was lost, gone, a passive passenger in his own body.

Bug monsters piled up against the base of the aliens’ defensive wall, clambering over each other, crushing their fellows in their rabid desperation to reach living flesh.  The aliens stood fast with their air powered weapons and raw courage. The monsters squealed and rasped while the aliens screamed like dying roosters when they were hurt. Orders were whistled among the defenders, along with skeeling shrieks of defiance.  In the middle of it all, the Ghost Rider raged and burned and slaughtered, whipping its chain along the wall to snag bugs that reached the top and burning them to sticky ash. Attacked, it’s wounds bled hellfire. Around it was only death. The earth shook during the night, a constant rumble that made stones jump, the aliens stagger and sway at their posts ... and set the Rider ablaze with eagerness.

_It is coming._

The dark lasted longest it’d ever been.  When the dull light returned, he made his way down to the camp, fucking _tired_ and hoping to rest but it looked like he was out of luck.  The whole camp was in an uproar. Even Robbie’s presence didn’t frighten the rushing crowds and he had to push his way back to the little spot he’d staked out for himself and the kid.  

The gate blazed in the grey light, finally complete, a dense web of golden fire filled the enormous arch - the only warm color in this dead place.  It was bright enough that Robbie didn’t have to pull up the Rider’s fire to see it, in fact, it was _painfully_ bright - no, Robbie scowled - the ache was something else.  There was something about that alien energy that resonated with the Rider, there was some _similarity_ there.  Robbie clenched his fists, smoke whisping from his sleeves as he fought to keep the call of the gate from igniting the Rider’s fire within.  The nearby pylons were spinning wildly as they fed power through ramshackle lines to the gate.

What seemed like chaos at first glance was frantic preparation.  Packs and bags and push carts were being packed with food (what there was of it), water, tools and weapons.  Families were huddled together, from squalling tiny aliens to rickety elders.

The ground bucked hard, making the pylons sway and teams rush to steady the equipment with anxious wails.  The gate was these alien’s only hope of escape from this hellish place. The pylons flared and the web built so painstakingly unfurled into a chaotic rush of symbols, then spiraled open to reveal a brand new landscape; lush and alive and nothing like the dying world they were stranded on.  A skirling, longing cry rose from hundreds of throats as the aliens saw where the gate would take them. Robbie didn’t need to understand their language to know what it meant. Safety. Life. _Hope_.

The ground surged again, then again, and Robbie turned, breath catching in sudden terrifying realization.  Something was coming. Something powerful enough, _large_ enough to shake the very earth.  Whatever it was - it was nearly here.  “Fuck,” Robbie breathed. His hand flew to the chain on his shoulder, but he made himself turn away from thundering approach.  Robbie fought for control as the Rider hissed and smoked in the back of his mind, demanding that he face the battle.

_Vengeance is now.  Your score will be settled and mine, mine will come!_

“Kid!” He yelled, hopelessly aware that he couldn’t be heard over the commotion but he had to find that kid and get it out of here.  He shoved his way to their tarp - it was trampled flat. “Kid, where are you?”

He didn’t have much time, the drumming noises were getting closer, louder and the Rider was slipping from Robbie’s control.  “Dammit! _Kid!”_ He bellowed.  He couldn’t let it get abandoned here, couldn’t leave another kid with no one and nothing.  Fuck!

The aliens knew their time had come and groups were streaming through the gate, organized for now but Robbie knew it would take just one accident, one stumble, before the whole thing became a deadly mob rush.  What chance would one little kid stand then? _“Kid!”_

Robbie’s shout dissolved into a scream, a howl, as fire ignited in his bones, his flesh crisped to ash, hair to smoke, and the chain in his hand became a molten whip of hellfire.  Vengeance had arrived.

A tide of bug monsters swarmed over the wall, screaming in pain the dim light, not attacking - _no_ \- they were running terror from what came next.  The creature - _thing_ \- that followed gave even the Ghost Rider pause.  

The bugs swarmed the wall but the Beast came _through_ it, cutting a razor edged circle with a - a _maw_ made up of glittering teeth running down an enormous gullet that disappeared into nothingness.  The long, angular black body was as glossy and impervious as the Charger. Dozens of needle sharp legs scrabbled, frantic and uncoordinated, but driving the creature forward.  It was huge, and the sharp teeth glittered like diamonds because they _were_ diamonds, just as the body was animated carbon.  It bellowed, a ravenous, never-ending cry as it crawled forward and it’s mindless goal was the gate itself and, beyond that, an entire new universe to consume.  Behind it was nothing - literally nothing - no ground, no sky, no light, no dark for this unliving monstrosity had consumed it all. The end of the world had come.

It was Eli.

The Rider and Robbie were the same; rage and betrayal and hatred burning hot enough to scorch sand as they rushed forward screaming.  The Beast didn’t notice until the burning chain lashed around two brittle legs, snapping them off. A massive spasm ran along the armoured body and the ground to bucked wildly while the gaping maw swung round to face the Ghost Rider’s fury.  Lightning quick it lunged, all bright teeth and hunger, distorted new limbs sprouting to replace old. The Beast wasn’t alive, it wasn’t dead, and it spread like a cancer, consuming the very source of existence in this world. It had eaten civilizations, stripped the quantum energy from an entire cosmos and was now coming for the last crumb.  It was a _god_.  

The Rider dodged forward as the maw crashed down behind it, chain slicing through the body, pieces raining down like rubble from a mountain.  Some of the Beast’s striking limbs hit home, spilling flame like lifeblood and throwing the Rider aside. It flung itself back at the mad construct, unrelenting, dodging razor sharp limbs, carving chunks of matter from the Beast’s endless body.  It was an impossible battle; the Beast had gorged itself on an entire existence, driven by the madness and jealousy of one man, but the Rider could not be reasoned with nor turned aside. The battle rocked the last corner of this dying dimension, sending fleeing aliens tumbling, and turning the evacuation near the gate into a panicked rush.

Amid the carbon armor and the diamond teeth, there was a center, a source - Eli Morrow’s body was nestled like a strange growth on the featureless forehead of the Beast.  It was this the Rider fought to reach, it drove both the Rider and Robbie forward. They didn’t see the blow coming until the last - far too late - minute.

A limb ending in a cluster of obsidian razors slammed down, hammering the Rider to the ground.  The shock of impalement extinguished the Rider for a moment, leaving Robbie stunned and screaming.  He was pinned like a bug, strangling on his own blood. The Beast loomed above, could he - _they_ \- die if they were stripped down to nothing and consumed by what his uncle had become?  

“Hope you choke, _tio_ ,” Robbie snarled through bloody teeth, his blood spreading across the lifeless ground with every painful heartbeat.  He fought to bring the Rider back, to ignite the endless fire that would save them both.

The high pitched whistling wails that came to his rescue weren’t the Rider.  The kid, the stupid _kid_ came rushing forward with an scavenged weapon, darts pinging uselessly off the Beast’s body.  That sent Robbie into an agonized panic as he writhed against the spear, screaming at the kid, screaming at the Beast, screaming at the fucking Rider to get his ass up and moving again!

The pain finally dragged the Rider to the forefront and Robbie gladly burned away.  The kid was hammering the butt of his rifle against the limb pinning the Rider down, ignoring both the Rider’s fire and the Beast’s hungry maw sweeping closer.  It flicked its leg and the Rider went with it, winding its burning chain along the limb and soaring like a rocket up, up and _over_ and crashing onto the Beast’s massive, curved back.  

Ghost Rider howled and raced along the Beast’s body, trailing fire.  A flick of its chain, the end catching on a ridge of corrupted mineral and the Rider _hauled_ , dragging the Beast’s head up like a fractious stallion - the crumbling world shook with the Rider’s eerie howls of rage and the Beast’s bellows.  Eli’s body was nestled in a hollow at the top of the Beast’s head, broken and barely alive - still full of resentment and madness and envy.

_He will Burn._

The Rider scrambled forward, clawing at the Beast’s body, burning gaze fixed on the man who’d killed a universe.  The Ghost Rider’s flaming hands closed on Eli arms, charring skin - and a very human scream tore the air. This was the man who’d loved Robbie like a son.  Who’d taught him everything he knew about cars, who’d raised him and Gabe when their parents had died. Who’d murdered friends, strangers, _worlds_ \- who’d become a god of endings, of death.  A destroyer. Flesh caught fire, bursting into smoke and sparks and Eli’s bewildered eyes met the Rider’s - met _Robbie’s_.  And he died.

The Beast collapsed.  Rock shattered to rubble, to dust, to ash ... hanging heavy in the still air and wrapping the Ghost Rider in shadow.  Satisfaction eclipsed hate - for the moment - and it guttered and went out, leaving Robbie with his hatred and betrayal and grief.

_Your score is settled._

Robbie struggled for breath, wiping a hand over his face and denying there were tears.  He stumbled urgently forward, scanning the ground. “Kid?” his voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.  “Hey, Kid?”

When he was sure there would be nothing but silence, when he was already settling into the loss, he heard an uncertain whistle.  Scrambling to the sound, Robbie found the kid huddled in a crook of a boulder, battered, bleeding, one arm of three broken - but alive.  Robbie swept it up in a hug, to the kid’s squealing confusion. It thunked Robbie on the head and he put it down. “Yeah, okay - sorry, kid.”  Robbie gazed around. The whole place was in ruin, dead aliens crushed by the battle, the gate tilted and empty. The death of the Beast hadn’t magically brought this alien world back to life.

“Kid,” Robbie sighed wearily.  What the hell were they going to do now? “I’m sorry.”

What they were going to do - or at least the kid was - was _starve_.  Unless Robbie found a way off this place.

There was barely anything left of the world.  When Robbie climbed the shattered wall, there was ... an impossible _nothingness_ on the other side.  There was no real light or dark anymore, just a dull greyish barely there light.  There were a few surviving bugs, clinging dispiritedly to the walls but no other living aliens.  There was the gate and Robbie - at a loss - put his mechanic skills to use and at least made it _look_ like it was repaired.

The two of them were sitting on some rocks in front of the dead gate, Robbie picking at his nails, very aware of the kid’s listlessness.  He had to do something, he had to try something. _Anything_.

“Why don’t you do something besides fuck shit up?” Robbie asked bitterly, trying to prod the Ghost Rider into action.  What the Rider could do, Robbie had no idea. Resting a hand against the battered metal curve, Robbie remembered the way the gate had called to the Rider, to the Rider’s _fire_ and he called it up - not to destroy, not to burn but to try and feed into the alien gate and make it work!

The pull was shocking, making Robbie stagger as his hand burst into flame and luminous heat ran along the frame of the gate.  The gate felt ... hungry almost, dragging hellfire in streams from Robbie’s body and he couldn’t pull it back, control it or stop it.  It was like being a firehose, the Rider’s hellfire rushing out of him in away Robbie hadn’t felt before. It hurt, like a new tooth, like a sore muscle, like something he’d never done before but might do again.  And the gate _lived_ \- blazing to sudden bright life, spiraling open in a chaotic rush of symbols to reveal a world ... living, beautiful and nothing like the world the aliens had opened before.

But it was escape.  Still pouring energy into the gate, Robbie looked back at the kid and held out his hand.

 

END (5/23/18)

  



End file.
